New Water-Testing Law Has Passed in N.C.

We'll glad to see that the state legislature passed a new law yesterday requiring counties to test new wells for private homes, including screening for a dozen or more contaminants.

We've been through the joys of a contaminated well, with known carcinogens found in our drinking water, presumably leaching out of the county landfill a mile away.

Water in these mountains exists (and moves) in the cracks between bodies of rock. The haphazard dumping of highly toxic materials onto the ground has gone on for years. I've seen local service stations draining radiators into storm drains. When I was a kid, I watched my own father drain crankcase oil directly onto the ground. All that wonderful man-made stuff goes eventually into those cracks in the rocks, where it will exist for eons, paying us back drop-by-drop for our carelessness and our arrogance.

We're sure county governments are going to moan and bitch about this new water-testing requirement, and real estate people and builders are apoplectic that a little thing like contaminated water might slow up new house sales. But the state legislature has acted in the public interest (against all odds), and The Guv is supposed to sign the law.